


Becoming Spring

by Lysandra



Category: Bartimaeus - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Nathaniel (Bartimaeus) Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-14 23:34:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21024065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lysandra/pseuds/Lysandra
Summary: Nathaniel wakes up again. Kitty was waiting for him. For dragonshine on tumblr. :) Thanks so much!





	Becoming Spring

It was December when Nathaniel woke up.

Magically-induced comas were funny things. It was hard to predict when they would end. Or _if _they would end.

Kitty had been visiting twice a week. Since she wasn’t family (not that Nathaniel had had the time to write down who he considered to be family), she waited patiently for the visiting hours between 2 and 5 o’clock. Usually, she arrived early. Each time, while she waited on the bench outside the building, protected from the elements by the balcony above, she ate a turkey and tomato sandwich she’d packed at home. She put the wax paper in her pocket after crumpling it into a ball. She looked at her watch.

Then, when it was time, she walked calmly through the glass doors and checked herself in. The nurse at the desk was a severe-looking woman who glared at Kitty as though she might be an assassin disguised as a tired-looking woman of indeterminate age. Kitty was patient with her. “Kathleen Jones,” she said. “I’m here to see John Mandrake.”

They took her to the trauma unit.

Most of the people there were recovering from broken bones or head injuries, shifting restlessly under their starched sheets. Nathaniel had been tucked away into a corner, with nothing but a thin curtain hiding him from the rest of the unit. The nurse who brought Kitty to see him gave her a long, pitying look. It was obvious without having to ask what she thought of his prognosis.

Kitty pulled back the thin blue curtain and then snapped it shut behind her, leaving her in something close to privacy with Nathaniel.

The boy lay silent and still on the thin mattress. His face was criss-crossed with lacerations that had been slow to heal; his hair had gone stark white from the magical trauma. If he had been awake, Kitty was quite certain he’d have been aghast at that: they matched. But aside from the hair, Nathaniel still looked so young. It was so obvious as he lay there, somewhere between asleep and dead – he was just a boy, nearly a child still. It was unbearably unfair. He’d given up so much.

Kitty settled herself in the creaky plastic chair next to his bed and sighed heavily. She supposed she ought to talk to him, in case that helped, but she hadn’t yet. It simply felt foolish. Kitty had already learned a few lessons about the dangers of hope, and she wasn’t eager to try her luck with it again. So she sat silently, watching his still face for any signs of life. She wondered, not for the first time, what had happened in those last moments before the collapse of the glass palace. She wondered whether Bartimaeus was alive, and if so, where. Was he still tucked up inside Nathaniel’s bones? She supposed it was possible. At least Nathaniel wouldn’t be alone then. Kitty felt guilty about it, but she sometimes envied the two of them. They’d had each other, right up to the end. It was Kitty who’d been left alone in the cold.

Kitty was watching Nathaniel’s left hand. It twitched, sometimes. It was probably nothing, just random activity of the nerves in his brain, but it was reassuring nonetheless. This time the movement was quite noticeable: the index finger curled and uncurled a bare amount, Nathaniel’s bony wrist flexing against the sheet. Kitty found herself slowly sucking in air through her teeth as she watched it, wondering if some part of him was…

She reminded herself to be careful of hope.

Still, though, Nathaniel’s movements seemed stronger this time. Kitty found herself sitting forward in her chair, drawing her coat closer about her shoulders. Abruptly, Nathaniel’s hand closed into a fist, and Kitty inhaled sharply.

“Nathaniel?” she whispered. No reaction. “Nathaniel,” she said, a bit louder. Still no reaction. The blue-veined hand that had moved before went slack against the sheet. Kitty cursed herself for hoping. Reminding herself that it was foolish hadn’t helped. She sighed and buried her face in her hands. She was tired. She’d slept poorly the night before. _What am I doing here? s_he thought. Was she here for Nathaniel, or for herself? How many more weeks would she come here, standing vigil over the breathing body of a dead man? Kitty’s eyes prickled with tears. She’d lost everything, she realized. Nathaniel – the memory of Nathaniel – was the only thing she had left.

Kitty stood, the chair screeching against the polished linoleum floor. She spent a couple of clumsy moments pulling her handbag back over her shoulder, and then she pulled the curtain back, ready to be home again.

“Kitty?” whispered a quiet, hoarse voice. Kitty’s blood ran cold. Was it real, or had she finally gone insane? A few long heartbeats passed. She turned slowly.

The boy in the bed had his eyes half-closed. He looked bad. Ill. But he was looking at her, as if through a fog, head lolling to one side. Each of Kitty’ heartbeats was so hard it hurt. She returned to the side of the bed, trembling faintly. “Nathaniel?”

“My head hurts,” Nathaniel croaked. Kitty sputtered out a laugh.

“You idiot,” she said. “You actually did it, you absolute idiot.” And she kissed him on the cheek.

The next hour was a blur of activity. The moment the nurses realized that their patient was awake, Kitty was shoved out of the room and made to pace in the hall while they ran a whole host of diagnostic tests. Every time someone left the room, Kitty tugged on their sleeve and demanded to know what was happening. Almost nothing, from what she could discern. His vital signs seemed normal. He was, astonishingly, in good health. But the fact of the matter was that he’d been unconscious for more than a month, and so he was treated the same as any patient who’d recently emerged from a coma. The hospital was not particularly well-equipped to treat magical injuries, and Kitty would have burned the place down before letting them send Nathaniel off to god-knows-where for strange magicians to poke and prod at him.

Kitty was on the verge of giving up and breaking him out of this godawful institution when a timid-looking man in scrubs approached her.

“Mrs. Mandrake?” he asked. Kitty blinked.

“Sure,” she said.

“Your husband is cleared to return home now. Make sure not to let him drive for the next-”

Kitty didn’t listen to the rest of what he said.

* * *

The ride home was tearful.

“I can’t believe this,” said Kitty.

“I know,” said Nathaniel. His voice was hoarse still.

“I thought you were dead.”

“I know.”

“Really, really dead.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“Is Bartimaeus…?”

“Alive. I sent him back to the Other Place. What are you doing?”

Kitty was parking the car at the side of the road. Gravel spun out. She leaned forward and pressed her face against the steering wheel, exhaling shakily.

“It’s alright,” said Nathaniel awkwardly.

“They’ll be looking for you now,” said Kitty. “Your enemies. And the press, and everyone else.”

Nathaniel nodded. “I supposed I should compose a formal statement.”

“Don’t talk like that. Not now.”

“What?” Nathaniel frowned. Kitty looked exhausted, even beyond the lines that now decorated her face. She looked like she’d been holding an unbearable burden for all the while Nathaniel had been asleep. Nathaniel felt suddenly guilty. He’d been so overwhelmed after waking up that he simply hadn’t had time to consider her feelings. But here she was, caring for him like they were old friends. Nathaniel reached out and cautiously touched the back of her shoulder, trying to ignore the way the gentle touch made him feel. Bartimaeus would have laughed at him. Goose bumps broke out over the skin that Nathaniel touched, and he thought of how Bartimaeus had mocked him for finding her...interesting. He pulled his hand back, swallowing convulsively.

“I’m alright,” said Kitty. “I just hate how different you are. One minute you’re a boy, and the next you’re a politician.” She laughed bitterly. “Sometimes I wonder which you would choose to be, if you could only pick one.”

“I’m not a _boy_,” said Nathaniel, faintly offended by the dig at his age.

“Good job missing the point.”

There was an awkward moment of silence. Kitty stared through the windshield.

“I’m sorry,” said Nathaniel. He truly was. “You must be very tired. You need a rest.”

She needed to go back to her home, and Nathaniel...he suddenly realized that he had no idea where he was meant to go. He still owned a townhouse, but the thought of returning there made him feel oddly uncomfortable.

“I’m fine. Are you alright?” Kitty was looking at him sideways, lips curved down into a half-frown.

“I’m thinking about...going home. It will be strange, I expect.”

“You could spend the night at my flat,” said Kitty. She didn’t mean to imply anything by it, and Nathaniel knew that immediately. Still, a few more moments of awkward silence.

“You told them I was your wife.”

Nathaniel rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “I wasn’t sure they’d let you see me otherwise.”

Kitty smiled. “Fair enough,” she said, and restarted the car.

* * *

Nathaniel slept on Kitty’s floor, wrapped tight in several layers of blankets. At first, she’d insisted on giving him the bed, but he’d refused. Despite his slow recovery, he found that he felt quite well. Better, even, than the night that he’d nearly died.

He was charged with energy, too, so much so that he found it nearly impossible to sleep. After he’d turned over thirteen or fourteen times on Kitty’s bedroom floor, he heard her turn over, sighing.

“Sorry,” Nathaniel muttered.

“It’s alright,” said Kitty.

There was a long pause. Nathaniel thought, not for the first time that hour, about how difficult it would be for them to detect a magical threat here without Nathaniel’s usual layers of protection.

“I thought you were dead,” Kitty said. Nathaniel fought the urge to apologize again.

“I almost was,” he said.

“What happened?”

“I’m not sure,” said Nathaniel. The memories were blurred with pain. He’d been very close to death. “I dismissed Bartimaeus,” he said. “After that, it’s hard to tell. There was a lot of magical energy when the staff broke. I know I must have been buried in rubble.”

Kitty exhaled heavily. “You weren’t hurt too badly when they found you. Physically, anyway.”

Nathaniel watched her silhouette where she lay tense upon her bed. “That staff...there was a spirit within it,” he said. “I felt it just before the staff broke. I felt how alive it was, how it yearned. I wonder...”

“We can ask Bart,” said Kitty. The corner of Nathaniel’s mouth curled up into a half-smile at the nickname.

“And we will,” he said.

* * *

In the morning, Kitty put on a pot of oats and Nathaniel made the tea. She watched him from across the room out of the corner of her eye, as if she’d be able to glean how he was truly feeling without having to ask.

“Do you want to do the summoning, or shall I?” asked Kitty.

“You want to do it today?” Nathaniel was taking the kettle off the stove.

“Of course,” Kitty said, stirring. “Why not?”

In truth, Nathaniel had hoped for some time alone with the woman who was now his only friend. But that thought sounded so childish that he didn’t dare voice it aloud, and so he simply muttered a string of incomprehensible syllables and spilled hot water on his wrist.

He heard Kitty laugh softly, a sound that made his heart beat fast. “In the afternoon, then,” she said. “You’ll need your strength to deal with him, anyway.”

Nathaniel grinned at that. “Breakfast first,” he said. “Let’s see if I survive that.”

“You’d better,” Kitty muttered, and she said it with levity, but Nathaniel could tell she was serious. She’d missed him. It was a strange feeling – Nathaniel was rather sure that no one had ever missed him before. He realized that it was strife that had brought them together. Any of his colleagues would have abandoned him at the drop of a hat when things became difficult, but danger had made Kitty a fierce ally. That was what bravery was, Nathaniel realized.

He carried the teapot over to Kitty’s rickety breakfast table and sat there, waiting awkwardly for her to bring the food. He pushed some of his white hair back from his face. He’d expected the change in color to bother him, but he found that he liked the way the two of them matched. They were both marked by magic irreversibly.

Kitty set the cast-iron pot down on the table heavily. “I’m sorry I don’t have anything better,” she said.

“This is wonderful,” said Nathaniel sincerely. He suddenly felt a bit embarrassed. With all his good fortune, it seemed uncouth to be eating a poor commoner’s food. But, he assured himself, he would make sure she was well taken care of. There was a flower of tenderness blooming in his chest. He’d make sure she never struggled again.

After breakfast, Nathaniel was thoroughly unsure what to do with himself. He paced back and forth, thinking of the phone calls he needed to make and the letters he needed to write, until Kitty couldn’t take it anymore and pushed him down into a chair in the kitchen.

“Perhaps we should do the summoning now,” she suggested. Nathaniel exhaled his relief.

“Yes,” he said. “A fine idea.”

Kitty led him back into her bedroom, where she’d chalked a pentacle onto the rickety floorboards. Nathaniel saw immediately the mistakes in the drawing, but he held his tongue. He trusted Kitty and Bartimaeus.

He settle in the pentacle with Kitty. Two summoners to a pentacle - it was a dangerous choice, or it would have been if they hadn’t trusted the spirit they planned to call upon. Kitty inhaled deeply, then spoke the ancient words.

Nathaniel closed his eyes and counted out the seconds.

It was the same every time.

Just when he was prepared to give up, there was a sudden rush of intensity in the room, and then-

“Oh, there you are!” came a smarmy voice. “I was thinking you’d never call.”

Kitty snorted. “It’s been less than two months.” Nathaniel opened his eyes.

The Egyptian boy in the opposite pentacle cocked his head. “Yes, well. It’s not as if you humans have many other things to do. Oh, what happened to your hair?!”

Nathaniel glowered at the djinni. “My hair? That’s all you care about?”

“Well, it’s the most obvious thing! Oh. Oh, you’re...you look well.” Bartimaeus seemed suddenly sheepish. Kitty rolled her eyes.

“He is well,” she said.

“M-hmm. Taking care of him, I see.” Bartimaeus cocked his head and winked extravagantly. Nathaniel felt his cheeks color

Kitty had a notebook at her side. She tapped her lower lip with her pen. “A few things,” she said. “I think it’s important we write down what actually happened.

He didn’t complain at the questioning.

* * *

The next few weeks were a whirlwind of paperwork.

Nathaniel sent letters and forms and made phone calls confirming that he was alive and in good health, but requesting time off to further recover from his injuries. The British government, now permanently in his debt, had no choice but to comply. Still, it was exhausting work. There were hoops to jump through and conferences to put off and at the end of it Nathaniel was left wishing that he’d never pursued a career in politics to begin with.

He kept intending to leave Kitty’s flat, but their time together was the only thing keeping him grounded. And she never complained. She seemed to enjoy having him there, and they ate dinner together every night, laughing and trading stories.

The thought of how, exactly, he was meant to recreate his life was daunting. He knew he couldn’t return to his career as a magician. His time with Bartimaeus in his head had only highlighted something he’d known for years: there could be no justification for way the government treated spirits. It was shameful. On some level, he’d always known it was shameful.

It was these thoughts that bothered Nathaniel as he sat at the kitchen table with Kitty one evening. He had a few freshly-sealed letters to his side, and Kitty was reading. She looked beautiful when she was absorbed in study, and Nathaniel had fantasies of paying for her higher education. To send a commoner to university was unheard of, but he knew that he could make it happen. For her, he could do anything.

That was a dangerous thought to have. But there was no way of denying how close to her he had become. The feelings he had for Kitty were genuine and intimate, and that made them different than all the relationships he’d had in his life so far.

Nathaniel watched the bones in her wrist flex as she turned the page in her book. She was beautiful. The effect her journey to the Other Place had had on her appearance meant nothing to him.

“Do you want to go out for...dinner?” Nathaniel blurted. He said _dinner _like it was some sort of alien ritual, and Kitty covered her eyes with one hand, snorting as she choked back a laugh. Nathaniel glanced out the window and considered throwing himself out of it. Had he hit his head and lost all his social graces? No, it wasn’t that simple. It was that, all his life, his interactions with others had followed a very specific framework. He knew what to do at a dinner party or a meeting. Alone with a girl who’d never set foot in a board room? He was lost. Perhaps I would be better if he’d just died instead of-

“I really, really do,” said Kitty, wiping a tear out of the corner of her eye.

Nathaniel blinked. “Really?”

Kitty smiled at him. Bartimaeus was right, damn him: he really did get a sweaty when she looked at him like that.

“I’m fond of you, Nathaniel,” she said. “I know it’s foolish, but I am.” Nathaniel wanted to laugh with relief.

“I’ve found myself to be incredibly fond of you, as well,” he said. She reached across the table to touch his wrist, and Nathaniel was a little boy again, small and afraid. But there was no danger here. He needn’t retreat to protect himself. He beamed at Kitty, and she beamed back.

“I was thinking to myself...perhaps it would be best if you continued to live here after all.”

Nathaniel cocked his head. “I can more than afford to live independently even without a regular income. My job afforded me many benefits – savings, property...”

Kitty sighed. “Nevermind. You really are an idiot still.” And with that, she leaned forward and kissed him full on the mouth.

It was the first time that Nathaniel had kissed someone, though not the first time he’d thought of it. It was clumsy and wet but his heart soared and before he knew it he was tangling his fingers in Kitty’s hair. They broke apart for a moment and Kitty laughed into his mouth, raising a hand to cup his jaw.

Nathaniel took her hand in his and kissed it, noticing the contrast between Kitty’s lined skin and his own.

“Look at us,” she sighed. “The handsome young magician and an old hag.”

“You’re not a hag,” said Nathaniel. “You’re perfect.”

_And I’m in love with you, _he thought.


End file.
